For Dusty Baker and Nicaragua, the World Baseball Classic was worth it

MIAMI — It’s 90 minutes before the first pitch, and Dusty Baker is rummaging through a plastic Hefty bag of colorful wristbands, looking for the ones he wants. Gray, burgundy, blue, yellow, teal, white, the iconic Mimsbandz are sitting on his desk in bulk.

After settling on his choice, he realizes his socks have not been placed in his locker before he got dressed. As someone who’s been putting on uniforms in MLB clubhouses for the better part of five decades, he knows when something is missing.

Before handing $100 bills to each of the clubhouse attendants and team workers, he’s in a bit of a rush, since the game before went longer than expected, condensing his team’s entire usual pregame routine. Batting practice and stretching were now combined, infield/outfield was scrapped entirely, and the usual trappings of field planning are not what Baker wants to be dealing with while putting his pants on.

Unless something changes, this will likely be the last time this routine happens, ever, for the World Series-winning manager. Team Nicaragua’s game against Venezuela is its last of pool play in the 2026 World Baseball Classic, and the Nicaraguans have already been eliminated from advancing to the knockout round. They finished the tournament winless, but for Baker and the people of the largest country in Central America, it was definitely worth the time and the effort.

“I had no idea it was going to be this [much] fun. It’d have been more fun had we won, and it brought back all these feelings I’d suppressed since I’d been out,” he said while putting his No. 12 white jersey on. “Like that tough loss the other day. S‑‑‑, I hadn’t had that feeling, like somebody tore your guts out, in a long while.”

Two days before, the Kingdom of the Netherlands’ Ozzie Albies hit a walk-off, three-run homer that tore through the interior sky at LoanDepot Park, absolutely stunning the crowd of nearly 17,000 Nicaraguan supporters in Miami. The silence was deafening for the faithful who’d shown up in great numbers all tournament, thinking they would see their country’s first-ever win in the World Baseball Classic. Alas, no dice, and it felt like the Fightin’ Dusty Bakers’ chances to advance died right there, even though technically they still had a chance.

Arguably, it was the manager’s decision that did them in. First base was open when Albies came to the plate in the ninth inning with the Netherlands trailing 3-1. It was the best game Nicaragua played all tournament, in which advancing runners and driving in runs was more than just at a premium, it was a disaster. The number of missed opportunities was visibly frustrating. But in this case, it looked like they had a chance.

They left 33 total runners on base in four games. Heading into their last game with the bases loaded? They were 0-for-7 with a walk. With runners in scoring position? Four-for-18, with 27 runners stranded, specifically. At that point, they stranded at least one baserunner in 17 of 27 innings.

Jeter Downs, a guy who bounced around Major League Baseball since being drafted in the first round in 2017 and now plays in Japan, hit a two-run shot in the eighth inning that had the place going nuts. In 2023, Nicaragua’s inaugural year in the WBC, not only did it lose all four games, the team scored only four runs in that affair.

Now, they were one out away. Literally the biggest moment in this history of the baseball nation was waiting to happen — in the hands of pitcher Angel Obando.

On deck was Didi Gregorius, a man who hasn’t played Major League Baseball in four calendar years. Dusty chose not to walk Albies, a three-time All-Star, two-time Silver Slugger and World Series champion with the Atlanta Braves.

On the first pitch, the 29-year-old Albies deposited a ball in right field with the kind of ease that made it look like child’s play. Just like that, the team managed by Braves legend Andruw Jones was out of the dugout, celebrating an improbable win for the European powerhouses.

After the game, the first question was obvious: Why didn’t you walk the switch-hitter Albies, or make a pitching change to force him to bat right-handed? Gregorius doesn’t exactly instill fear in pitchers. At least not last time that I looked in — checks notes — Dubai and Mexico. In all seriousness, though, what was Dusty thinking?

“I didn’t think about walking Ozzie because you don’t put the winning run on base. The ball just caught too much of the plate. Obando, he did a heck of a job for us. Big play is when that ball hit the bag. And started with a flare with two strikes, two outs, and then the ball hit the bag,” Baker said, referring to the play that kept the Netherlands in it — just a tough break that otherwise would have been an out.

“So no, I wasn’t thinking about it. I thought about possibly turning him around, but Ozzie, I think he’s a better hitter right-handed than he is left-handed.”

Fair enough. And these are the kinds of decisions managers get paid to make based on interpretation. If you want to know the stats, you can make the call yourself. In his career, as a left-handed batter facing a right-handed pitcher, Albies has had more at-bats than any other combination combined. He’s also hit more homers than all other combos combined. But his average is putrid, compared to all other matchups combined. Gambled, lost. That’s why you play the games.

“It was a crushing defeat, not only for us but for the whole country of Nicaragua,” Baker lamented after the 4-3 loss. “You’ve got to lick your wounds and then come back tomorrow.”

The next day, there was exactly one English outlet reporter there to talk before the game. And one other person, total. So I asked him about dinner, since it was basically just us. Baker’s food knowledge around the globe is legendary, so it seemed like a good place to start.

“I had lobster and pasta at Kiki. I went to Kiki On The River,” Baker said with an encouraging smile, referring to the luxury Greek spot. “We had a good time. I needed to see my friends and wife after that game last night. That helped a lot.”

One of those friends was the man standing off stage, who’s been behind Baker the whole time and who is the reason he’s there at all — a friend he met not recently, but a half century ago, in the very same state we’re sitting in, just about 150 miles away.

Four months ago at the MLB winter meetings, Dusty Baker was sitting on a stool next to a small table in a booth. Except, he wasn’t alone. Unlike the usual trappings of baseball’s annual national conference, the World Baseball Classic media availability is not a highly staged, centralized event. It’s a full-blown free-for-all, the likes of an international bazaar, understandably.

Imagine a reasonably small conference room with 40 guys, two to a booth, surrounding the outside walls. In the middle: 150 reporters from every stretch of the globe, with all sorts of lights and camera equipment buzzing around the room, with differing standards of what we consider courtesy when it comes to personal space — with at least eight different languages speaking in the room. It is hands down the most chaotic event of the winter meetings (if you don’t count the lobby as an official event).

There sitting next to Baker is a man literally no one has said a word to for half an hour. Unbothered, he looks on as Baker answers questions about any and all things. With their blue sign reading “NICARAGUA” behind them, the questions were about new San Francisco Giants manager Tony Vitello; Aaron Judge (people kept trying to compare him to Barry Bonds, a laughable framework that Baker literally laughed at); the Sacramento A’s; the Cincinnati Reds (another team he managed); what it was like facing Shohei Ohtani — all sorts of stuff.

By the time the convo got around to the team Baker is actually managing, he mentions the name of the man sitting next to him, yet no one knows who he’s talking about — even though he’s sitting right there.

George Santiago, general manager of Nicaragua baseball, has known Dusty for 50 years. They met in Vero Beach, Florida, the old Dodgertown, where for 60 years the Dodgers held spring training until 2008. It’s a legendary facility and a nationally historic site that’s now run by MLB as the Jackie Robinson Training Complex. Various youth and college tournaments are held there year-round.

But obviously, for a long time, it was the place where dreams were sold to players who wanted to wear the Dodger blue. Santiago was one of those guys when he crossed paths with Baker for the first time.

“I was invited to spring training as a minor leaguer, and after we got done working out, I stuck around to watch a game,” Santiago said with the kind of enthusiasm that screamed, ‘I thought you would never ask.’

“A little incident happened on the field among the players, and afterwards I said to [Baker], ‘Hey, that was pretty cool what you did.’ He goes, ‘What are you talking about? You noticed that?’ I said, ‘Yeah, that was pretty cool.’ Ever since then, we’ve been friends.”

What could have possibly happened in a spring training game that to the naked eye was no big deal, but to a ball-knower would be all the difference in determining a guy’s skill set?

Easy: Solving a problem.

“You know when those popups fall in the triangle, that right fielder doesn’t get it, the center fielder doesn’t get it, the second baseman doesn’t get it, and the ball falls in between? I remember [second baseman] Steve Sax and [center fielder] Rudy Law — the ball fell [between them]. They picked it up, threw it in, and kind of started arguing,” Santiago said with the recall of someone who remembers it like it happened yesterday. “[Baker] came in and pushed them away and said, ‘Get out of here. Don’t do that.’ And it went into the dugout. He chewed them out. And he said, ‘Hey, you don’t do that on the field. You wait till you get into the dugout and you say what you got to say. But out there, you move on.’ ”

It was subtle, but as the elder statesman on that team it was the kind of thing that a leader does. Santiago was eventually released, and he went home to New York. When Baker would come to town, they’d hang out. That “incident” happened in 1981. Fun fact: The Dodgers won the World Series that year.

“I was told to go home, but I came home with a friendship of 50 years. And you know, we just stayed close,” Santiago said, while reporters continued shoving various lights, cameras and action in Baker’s face from 5 feet away. “I would say that Dusty is probably the only person that I know that can walk into a redneck bar, or whatever, and walk out being friends with everybody and connecting people. He’s got that ability to bring people together.”

None of this is as random as it looks. Not only has Baker played in the winter leagues, but to a certain workable degree, he speaks Spanish. Sure, maybe not well enough to not use the translator headsets in crowded press conferences, but let’s not act like the man hasn’t been around long enough to know what he’s talking about.

People forget Black ballplayers have been playing south of the border for some time. Ask any brotha who was around baseball back then, and a lot of them have great memories from those days of their careers. I’ll never forget the first time I heard Reggie Jackson answer a reporter’s question on the field in Spanish without even blinking.

But, more colloquially, there were a couple extra reasons beyond the obvious (communication with your teammates) to learning a language in a foreign land that you’re spending a good amount of time in: meeting girls and staying out of jail (Nevermind, Baker grew up in Southern California. Let’s be real).

“I mean, my mother made me take three years Spanish before I graduated from high school, OK? And then she taught Spanish. And then my uncle married a Mexican lady, mi tia [my aunt]. Our neighborhood was in Riverside. [It] was probably 50% Mexican, right?” Dusty said at the winter meetings in December 2025. “I really didn’t like taking Spanish, because all I wanted to do was play ball.

“But then, I went to Mexico, and I was the only [American] guy who could speak Spanish. And I went to Venezuela. Then I went to Puerto Rico, and then I was thanking my mom for making me take Spanish. And then once I got into pro ball and started coaching and managing, I was even more thankful because barriers are broken down through language, food and music.”

Beyond the clubhouse, though, real life is real life.

“I got out of trouble in Mexico. The guy was gonna throw me in jail,” Dusty recalled of getting out of a sticky situation. “I was going the wrong way down a one-way street, and he took my license, and the comandante was out of town, Then, another time when I was playing in Mexico. There was a pretty girl over there. Nobody knew how to speak, and they asked me to go over and talk to her. They knew I could speak. I went and talked to her. And then I came back and they said, ‘What’s she saying?’ I said, ‘She likes me. Yeah, that’s right.’ ”

In all seriousness, though, cultural connectivity is what this game — and specifically this tournament — is all about.

So, when a manager like Team USA’s Mark DeRosa mocks one of his own players — Alex Bregman, who did his best to answer a reporter’s question in Spanish, a skill he’s publicly been working on for the better part of decade — it comes across as so boorish and benighted that it makes you cringe.

Obviously, Dusty doesn’t operate that way. So when his old friend called him up to see if he could improve the team’s lot this year, the answer was yes. This wasn’t a reach as far as melting pots go.

“I think Major League organizations are losing that part of it,” Santiago said. “With Dusty, it goes back to when he was a minor leaguer playing with the Latin guys. And he has told me many times, between the Latin players and African American players, they united because they were both in the same boat, but one spoke English, one didn’t, so there was that connection.”

In a full-circle moment, before the tournament began, the team held training camp in Vero Beach at the JRTC. Baker hadn’t been back there since 1990. He talked to the team about the importance of the history of the location and was extremely impressed with the job MLB has done with that facility, mentioning specifically Tony Reagins. He is MLB’s chief baseball development officer, and he was the general manager of Team USA at the previous World Baseball Classic in 2023.

How does Baker remember exactly when he previously visited Vero Beach? Because he was working a fantasy camp that year for the Dodgers. At that fantasy camp, he met Marvin Bittinger, the math textbook author with whom he wrote the book “You Can Teach Hitting.” It was published in 1993.

So, Baker got the band back together: Gary Pettis, his third base coach from the Astros, and hitting coach Randall Simon (yes, that one), who played for Baker when he was with the Chicago Cubs. It all added up to him becoming the skipper for the 2026 WBC.

If you’re not familiar with Nicaragua’s history, many Black folks are involved. Without taking you too far down history’s lane, Nicaragua is one the places political activist Marcus Garvey was trying to repatriate Afro-Latinos from to move back to the continent of Africa. If you want to go down a rabbit hole, check out Theodore G. Vincent’s book “Black Power and the Garvey Movement,” of which Nicaragua is certainly a part.

For the basics: Nicaragua is home to actual black panthers.

For Dusty, the people of Nicaragua have shown nothing but love. On his actual visit to Nicaragua, it was obviously there. But in Miami, the love from Nicaraguans was palpable. Though they were expected to have the smallest Latin crowd, Nicaragua was sort of the darlings of the group despite not winning a game — a group that also hosted semifinalists Venezuela and Dominican Republic, who both have crowds the likes of which makes grown American men cry because they will never have that kind of swag.

Nicaragua might have been shut out in their final two games, but the tone opposing managers took when addressing the fact that they got to see Baker in the opposing dugout was always one of reverence and immense respect.

“I’ve been looking across the diamond and seeing Dusty Baker for a few decades, so it’ll be a familiar sight. Played a number of teams he managed, managed against him, know Dusty, super human being,” said Brad Ausmus, the former Detroit Tigers and Los Angeles Angels manager.

Ausmus, the bench coach for the New York Yankees, is managing Team Israel.

“Obviously an extremely accomplished Hall of Fame manager, accomplished player in his own right,” Ausmus said of Baker.

Fun fact: Dusty is not actually in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. We should get on that. An actual Hall of Famer — Andruw Jones, manager of the Kingdom of the Netherlands — feels the same way.

“I know Dusty very well. He’s a great friend. I played against him a lot, him being a manager. He always gave me a lot of crap about, every time when he comes to town, ‘Where is the great soul food?’ And I always told him I don’t eat that. He always gave me trash about that. He was like, ‘What do you eat? Couple Big Macs? That’s why you don’t hit homers,’ ” Jones joked before that emotional game. “But it’s a great honor to see him on the side as a future Hall of Famer manager. He’s a great friend.”

This isn’t just about Baker walking in and gracing everyone with his presence. There’s an actual job to do, and for someone like Jones who played 17 seasons in the Majors for five teams, he knows as well as anyone.

“Manager is a tough job, to be honest with you, because now you have 30 guys, but normally you have 28, 25. You have to know how to handle 25 characters. You interact with 25 players, and it’s a tough job because you don’t know which one you’ve got to kick in the butt or maybe this one you have to push or maybe this one you have to kiss,” said Jones, whose son Druw is on his team. “I saw Bobby [Cox] do it. I admired Ozzie Guillen when I played with him, Ron Washington, Joe Girardi, Joe Torre, guys that I admire and see from the other side — like Dusty Baker, how he handled the guys.”

Perhaps the man with the most intense feeling about facing Baker was Albert Pujols, arguably the most famous baseball figure at the tournament. As manager of the Dominican Republic, he’s been at the helm of a squad that found its form and hit the most homers in WBC history.

His team’s clubhouse and dugout antics are the stuff that dreams are made of, but when it comes to talk about Baker, he had to adjust his glasses and gather himself.

“Let me think about this because I’m really humbled, obviously, to have an opportunity to go against a legend. I went against him a lot as a player, with Chicago, San Francisco, Cincinnati. I really admire him from the other side. I really admire the way that he went about it, not just as a player but as a manager, as well,” Pujols said solemnly. “All I hear is just great things about him, how great a manager he was and he is still, and I think that will show you a lot.

“For a guy with that stature, to be able to come and represent and be the head of Nicaragua and help those guys out and help prepare them for this tournament, that means a lot. He loves the game. He loves to help. I’m really thankful to have a really good relationship with him. I spent a little time last night [with him] over the rules and where we were, and it was fun just to catch up with him. He’s somebody that I admire, really.”

As for whether this is Baker’s last ride, there’s only one possibility lurking. Judging how the military onslaught that is Team USA is doing in the court of public opinion, it might be time to reconsider who’s at the helm for LA28. While Olympic baseball certainly doesn’t have the cache of the World Baseball Classic, mouth-breather opinions aside, even if the Americans win this tournament, leadership could use a refresh from a talk show host.

It’s the only thing Baker’s even thought of.

“I don’t have the the desire or the energy to do it every day. Maybe on the Olympic team, as a coach or something,” Baker said, strapping on sneakers before taking the field. “That would be exciting. That would be about the only learning thing that I could really think about.”

Before any of the games started, Baker said, “This is kind of my last opening day. … I’ve seen this on TV, but I’ve never been a part of it.”

But perhaps similar to Team USA pitcher Tarik Skubal, who was caught off guard by the energy of the tournament and nearly left spring training, did the excitement reignite Baker’s fire to manage an MLB team again?

As Baker tucked his shirt in to head out, the answer was simple.

“No.”

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